Death (Anthropology)

The Politics of Pity: Domesticating Loss in a Russian Province

by Serguei Alex. Oushakine (Сергей Ушакин)

in American Anthropologist. Vol. 108, No. 2 (2006): 297-311.

The Burial of the Dead: the British Army on the Western Front, 1914–18

by Ross Wilson

War & Society, Vol. 31 No. 1, March, 2012, 22–41

This article examines the ‘war culture’ that developed within the British Army with regard to death and burial on the... more This article examines the ‘war culture’ that developed within the British Army with regard to death and burial on the Western Front. Soldiers on the battlefields responded to the presence of death and the bodies of the dead through a specific framework that was used to understand this perverse and violent landscape. This drew upon pre-war practices and emphasized the physicality of the corpse in the desire to ensure a ‘decent’ burial for a ‘pal’.

Chapple, R. M. 2012 Workingman’s Dead: Notes on some 17th to 19th century memorials, from the graveyards of Killora and Killogilleen, Craughwell, Co. Galway, Ireland. Part I Blogspot post

by Robert M Chapple

INTRODUCTION TO SANTA MUERTE - a critical description through faith, politics, and marketing

by Laura Merlo

Translation of my Bachelor thesis, which I wrote at the end of my three years study period at Bologna University.

Who is Santa Muerte? Who are her devotees? Is she narco's goddess? A critical analisys which aims to describe, with a... more Who is Santa Muerte? Who are her devotees? Is she narco's goddess? A critical analisys which aims to describe, with a critical point of view, a recent phenomenon which is hardly understandable and is highly differentiated, more than one might be prone to think.

Exposer le cadavre de l'ennemi

by Hadrien Rambach

Danses Macabres d'Europe. Bulletin no. 44, January 2012, p. 20

Report of the recent sale of four skulls, apparently displayed in Prague 1621-1848. Report of the recent sale of four skulls, apparently displayed in Prague 1621-1848.

INTRODUZIONE ALLA SANTA MUERTE: panoramica critico-descrittiva tra fede, politica e marketing

by Laura Merlo

La mia tesi di laurea triennale, che ho scritta al termine dei miei tre anni presso l'università di Bologna.

Cos'è la Santa Muerte? Chi sono i suoi devoti? E' la dea dei narcotrafficanti? Una panoramica che mira a descrivere,... more Cos'è la Santa Muerte? Chi sono i suoi devoti? E' la dea dei narcotrafficanti? Una panoramica che mira a descrivere, con sguardo critico, un fenomeno recente e ancora difficilmente comprensibile, più differenziato e multiforme di quanto si sia portati a credere.

2008 Unusual life, unusual death and the fate of the corpse: a case study from dynastic Europe. In Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record, pp. 169-190. Edited by Eileen M. Murphy. Oxbow: Oxford

by Estella Weiss-Krejci

This article explores how deviant behaviour in life, deviant circumstances of death, and young age at death affected... more This article explores how deviant behaviour in life, deviant circumstances of death, and young age at death affected mortuary treatment among historically documented individuals from Medieval and Post-Medieval European dynasties. The study is based on an investigation of 868 individuals who are members of the Habsburg and Babenberg Dynasties or affiliated with these two houses. From this sample a group of
221 individuals as well as an additional 36 individuals, whose lives or deaths may be considered deviant, were selected for a closer investigation. The results show that ‘social deviants’ as well as people who died during warfare and in battle, victims of murder and disease, as well as young children have been afforded differential mortuary treatment. On the other hand, individuals who died during childbirth or from accidents
were usually treated according to the norm.

Symbolic and Social Roles of Women in Death Ritual in Traditional Irish Society

by Jenny Butler

Dobrá smrt vysokokastovního hinduisty

by Lubomír Ondračka

in: Smrt a umíráni v náboženských tradicích světa, Praha: Cesta domů, 2010; s. 9-56.

"A Good Death of a High-Caste Hindu". In: Death and Dying in Contemporary Religious Traditions (in Czech).

Funerals and the religious imagination. Burying and honoring the dead in the Celestial Church of Christ in southern Benin

by Joël Noret

published in M. Jindra and J. Noret (eds), Funerals in Africa. Explorations of a Social Phenomenon, New York, Berghahn, 2011.

Building on research conducted on funerals in the Celestial Church of Christ, an African prophetic Church very popular... more Building on research conducted on funerals in the Celestial Church of Christ, an African prophetic Church very popular in southern Benin, this paper engages the debated issue of "syncretism".

Chapple, R. M. 2009 'A vase food vessel burial at Shantallow, Londonderry' Ulster Journal of Archaeology 68, 40-46

by Robert M Chapple

Archaeologically monitored topsoil stripping and demolition of a factory at Shantallow, Londonderry, in 2004 uncovered... more Archaeologically monitored topsoil stripping and demolition of a factory at Shantallow, Londonderry, in 2004 uncovered a cremation burial associated with a decorated vase food vessel of Early Bronze Age date.

Complementarity in this world and the next: gender and agency in Kodi mortuary ceremonies

by Janet Hoskins

“Here Lies the Body: Eighteenth-Century Gravestones in the Alamance Presbyterian Churchyard and Their Possible Symbolic Meanings.”

by Andrea Jones

Published in The North Carolina Folklore Journal 43.1 (1996) and reprinted in The Guilford Genealogist 24.3 (1997).

Welcome, sister death: On the remarkable departures of illumined beings

by Ronald L. Boyer

A reprint of one of my first published essays in 1981. Originally published in Laughing Man Magazine (1981). Please ignore typos in recreated version by unknown typist.

This article, originally published years ago in the Laughing Man, a journal of contemporary spirituality, examines... more This article, originally published years ago in the Laughing Man, a journal of contemporary spirituality, examines accounts of the extraordinary manners of death attributed to mystics, saints and sages of numerous spiritual traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. 

Femsep's Last Garden: A Telefol Response to Mortality,'

by Dan Jorgensen

Chapter 10 of Aging and Its Transformations, edited by Dorothy Ayers Counts and David Counts, pp. 203-221. ASAO Monograph No. 10 (1985). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Mummymania: mummies, museums and popular culture.

by Jasmine Day

2006, Journal of Biological Research 80(1) (special issue: Proceedings V World Congress on Mummy Studies): 296–300.

The seeds of doom: mummy wheat and resurrection flowers in folklore, poetry and early curse fiction.

by Jasmine Day

2008, In P. Peña, C. Martin and A. Rodriguez (eds) Mummies and Science – World Mummies Research: Proceedings of the VI World Congress on Mummy Studies. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Academia Canaria de la Historia, pp.623–6.

One of the principal motifs from the formative period of Western mummymania – which has since disappeared – was the... more One of the principal motifs from the formative period of Western mummymania – which has since disappeared – was the “mummified” seed found in an Egyptian tomb which, when planted, miraculously grew after thousands of years. This motif originated from a widespread (but erroneous) early nineteenth century belief that mummy seeds actually existed. Press reports claimed that peas, dahlias and entire crops of wheat had been grown from seeds found in tombs. Writers were quick to invest this phenomenon with meaning; while poets drew analogies with Biblical accounts of life-giving wheat as God’s gift to humanity, authors of early curse fiction depicted seeds that grew into beautiful but poisonous flowers. Yet whether fictional mummies withheld benevolent seeds in their selfish clasp or used them to wreak revenge upon the violators of their tombs, these mummies were almost universally portrayed in seed scenarios as evil.

The maid and the mummy.

by Jasmine Day

In press, In R. Dann and K. Exell (eds) Approaching Ancient Egypt. New York: Cambria Press Inc.

The Mummy's Curse: Mummymania In the English-Speaking World

by Jasmine Day

2006, London, New York: Routledge.

The rape of the mummy: women, horror fiction and the Westernisation of the curse.

by Jasmine Day

2008, In P. Peña, C. Martin and A. Rodriguez (eds) Mummies and Science – World Mummies Research: Proceedings of the VI World Congress on Mummy Studies. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Academia Canaria de la Historia, pp.617–21.

In 1998, the late Dominic Montserrat rediscovered the 1869 story "Lost in a Pyramid: or, the Mummy’s Curse"... more In 1998, the late Dominic Montserrat rediscovered the 1869 story "Lost in a Pyramid: or, the Mummy’s Curse" by Louisa May Alcott, which he claimed to be the earliest fiction story with a “mummy’s curse” theme. I have since discovered a number of even earlier works in this genre that confirm Montserrat’s speculation that women made a vital contribution to early Western popular curse lore. Using examples from these forgotten works, I will show that American female authors drew an analogy between the unwrapping of mummies and rape, not only to condemn unwrapping as distasteful, but also perhaps to critique capitalism and patriarchy, which objectified and commodified the bodies of living women and mummies alike. In so doing they Westernised Arabic curse legends by investing them with proto-feminist meanings relevant to their own culture, establishing an analogy that survives, if implicitly, in even the most abstracted contemporary curse scenarios.